More Government or Less Government? Further Thoughts for Promoting the Government

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to provide further thoughts for promoting the government after reviewing the competing insights of the right-wing public choice school economists and the left-wing institutionalists in the VeblenCommons tradition. This paper points out that big government and big business have indeed become complements to some extent. That is, they are symbiotic and one certainly cannot criticize (or try to remove) big government without checking big business at the same time, and vice versa. To counteract the power of corporate hegemony and to break the control of governments by privileged interests, this paper suggests that it is desirable to initiate institutional change in society toward the movement of more local government planning in promoting the local community. Such a society is not only practically consistent with the progress of sustainable development (under the “think globally, act locally” guideline) but also conceptually compatible with John Stuart Mill’s high-minded mental culture and John Maynard Keynes’S forward-looking vision of economic bliss.

Keywords::

• government
• rent-seeking
• corporate hegemony
• the Iron Triangle
• institutional change